Instant Booking vs Request-to-Book: Which Model Wins for Your Rental Property?

Every vacation rental host eventually faces the same question: Should you let guests book instantly or wait for your approval? It’s not just a checkbox in your settings. This decision affects how many bookings you get, who stays in your property, and how much time you spend managing requests.

The choice between instant booking and request-to-book shapes your entire rental business. One model gives guests immediate confirmation with zero back-and-forth. The other lets you screen every person before they enter your door. Neither is universally better, but one is probably right for your situation.

What Instant Booking Actually Means

When you enable instant booking, you tell guests they can now reserve your place. No waiting. No wondering if you’ll say yes. They complete their payment, and boom, they’re booked.

Here’s what happens behind the scenes:

• Guest finds your property and checks availability
• They register (if they haven’t already) and pay the deposit
• System confirms the booking automatically
• Calendar blocks off those dates
• The guest receives confirmation instantly

You don’t touch the request. You don’t review the guest’s profile. You can’t decline. Once instant booking is on, you’ve committed to accepting anyone who follows your rules and pays.

Turning this on in WP Rentals means checking a box when you add or edit a property. The system handles everything else, from collecting deposits to sending payment reminders three days before check-in.

How Request-to-Book Works

Request-to-book keeps you in the driver’s seat. Every booking goes through you first.

The process looks like this:

• The guest submits a booking request through your site
• You get an email notification
• You review their profile, read any messages they sent
• You accept, reject, or ask questions
• If you approve, you issue an invoice for the deposit
• The guest pays, and only then is the booking confirmed

WP Rentals lets you manage all of this from your dashboard. You can see pending requests, check your calendar, and decide on your timeline. Those dates will automatically be free for other guests if you reject a request.

The catch? You need to respond quickly. Data from IntelliHost shows that properties with response rates below 89% convert at just 0.5%. Get that up to 90-99%, and conversion jumps to 0.8%. Perfect response times hit 1% conversion. Responding within an hour improves your conversion rate by 25% compared to slower replies.

The Numbers Don’t Lie

By mid-2019, Airbnb had roughly 3.6 million instant-book listings, about 60% of its inventory. Hosts aren’t choosing this model randomly.

Properties offering instant booking see some measurable advantages:

• Search algorithms favor them (better placement in results)
• Occupancy rates increase anywhere from 5% to 20%
• Conversion improves because there’s no messaging delay

This matters because typical vacation rental conversion rates sit between 1% and 5%. That means out of every 100 people who view your listing, maybe 1-5 actually book. Every friction point in your booking process drives that number down.

When guests have to wait for approval, some give up. They find another property, change plans, or forget your place entirely. Industry consultants call this “slippage,” and instant booking eliminates it.

The Guest Experience Side

From the traveler’s perspective:

Instant booking feels convenient. You’re planning a weekend trip, browsing listings on your lunch break, and you want certainty. With instant booking, you can lock in your accommodation in 30 seconds. No waiting around hoping the host checks their email. No risk that someone else books while you’re waiting for approval.

This appeals especially to:

• Last-minute travelers who need immediate answers
• Planners who want their trip confirmed now
• Anyone who’s had a booking request denied before

But it’s not perfect. Guests can’t ask questions first. If they have specific needs or want to clarify house rules, they’re booking blind (assuming they don’t read every detail).

Request-to-book lets guests communicate before committing. They can ask about parking, check if your place works for their group size, or verify pet policies. Some travelers prefer this, especially for extended stays or unfamiliar destinations.

What Hosts Think About

Time savings vs. control:

Instant booking cuts your workload significantly. No requests to review, no messages asking, “Is this available?”, and no back-and-forth about check-in times. Your calendar just fills up automatically.

Request-to-book means work. You’re checking requests, replying to messages, and making judgment calls. For hosts with multiple properties or full-time jobs, this can become exhausting quickly.

Guest quality concerns:

This is where instant booking makes some hosts nervous. You can’t screen people, and you can’t say no to someone who seems sketchy. You trust your platform’s verification systems and house rules to filter out problems.

With request-to-book, you see profiles before accepting. You can decline groups that mention parties. You can refuse one-night stays if those tend to cause issues. You maintain full veto power.

Trust and Safety Tools

Both booking models need safety mechanisms. The difference is who controls them.

Platform Verification Systems

Airbnb introduced ID verification to build trust between strangers. Guests upload a government ID and profile photo. The platform verifies everything but doesn’t share the actual documents with hosts. You know someone’s verified, but you don’t see their ID.

Some hosts find this insufficient. The photo-matching isn’t always accurate. You’re relying entirely on the platform’s process without seeing the evidence. This pushes some property managers toward third-party screening tools.

WP Rentals Protection Features

WP Rentals gives you several layers of protection:

Verified Owner Badge – Admins can verify property owners by reviewing uploaded IDs. Once approved, a verified badge appears on the owner’s profile and listings. This builds credibility for both models.

Security Deposits – Owners can require a security deposit as insurance against damages. The deposit goes to the admin’s payment account and can be refunded through PayPal using a specific add-on.

Hidden Contact Details: WP Rentals hides phone numbers and emails until guests pay the service fee and deposit. This prevents guests from bypassing your platform and booking directly without paying your costs.

Review System: Guests leave reviews after their stay. These ratings help future guests decide and give instant-book properties reputation metrics. Bad reviews hurt instant-book properties since you can’t screen guests upfront.

Messaging System: Built-in private messaging lets hosts and guests communicate. This happens after confirmation for instant bookings, but it can happen before for requests.

Payment and Fee Structure

WP Rentals handles money differently depending on your booking model.

With instant booking:

• The system automatically collects deposit and service fees
• Guest must pay before booking confirmation
• The remaining balance gets tracked in the user dashboard
• Automated reminders go out three days before check-in
• No manual invoicing needed

With request-to-book:

• You approve the request first
• Then you issue an invoice manually
• The guest pays the deposit after receiving your invoice
• Booking confirms only after payment clears
• More steps, more admin work

Site admins control the global settings: deposit percentages, service fees (flat or percentage), weekend night requirements, and the number of months shown in calendars. These apply across all properties, but individual owners can set security deposit amounts.

When to Choose Instant Booking

You should seriously consider instant booking if:

You’re a professional property manager with multiple units and standardized operations. You have systems to handle the occasional problem guest and value occupancy over perfect guest selection.

Your property is straightforward with clear rules and no exceptional circumstances. Instant booking works great if someone can read your listing and know precisely what they’re getting.

You want maximum bookings and are willing to trade some control for higher conversion rates. The search algorithm boost alone can justify this choice.

You hate administrative tasks and want bookings to happen automatically while you focus on other aspects of your business.

Set strict house rules, require minimum notice periods, and keep your calendar updated religiously. Sloppy calendar management can lead to double bookings.

When Request-to-Book Makes Sense

Stick with request-to-book if:

You rent your primary home occasionally and need to coordinate around your personal schedule. You can’t afford to accept bookings that conflict with family plans or maintenance automatically.

Your property is unique or high-end, where guest fit matters more than occupancy rates. Maybe you’ve got valuable art, or your place works better for specific groups.

You target longer stays where both parties need to discuss details before committing. Month-long rentals benefit from pre-booking conversations about utilities, parking arrangements, or local orientation.

You’ve had problems with certain guest types and want the ability to decline based on profile reviews or communication red flags.

Just know you’re trading convenience for control. You must respond fast, or you’ll lose bookings to competitors with instant booking enabled.

Platform Algorithms and Search Ranking

Both Airbnb and VRBO boost instant-book listings in search results. They want bookings to happen, and instant booking guarantees that. When you maintain 100% acceptance rates or enable instant booking, algorithms reward you with better visibility.

Consultants from AirDNA and OptimizeMyBNB consistently note this ranking advantage. Properties that make booking harder (slow responses, lots of rejections, request-only) get pushed down in search results.

For WP Rentals sites, this matters less unless you’re syncing with major OTAs. But the principle holds: make booking easy, get more bookings.

The Hybrid Approach

Some property managers don’t choose just one model. They:

• Enable instant booking during peak season when they want maximum occupancy
• Switch to request-to-book during the shoulder season when they can be pickier
• Use instant booking for shorter stays, request-to-book for week-long or monthly rentals
• Set different models for different properties based on each one’s characteristics

WP Rentals makes this easy since you can toggle the instant booking checkbox per property. Test both approaches, track your conversion rates and guest quality, then optimize based on real data.

What to Do Next

If you’re enabling instant booking:

1. Set clear, detailed house rules that filter out incompatible guests
2. Configure your minimum notice period (24-48 hours prevents same-day bookings)
3. Set up security deposits to protect against damage
4. Keep your calendar obsessively updated to avoid double bookings
5. Use the verified owner badge to build trust

If you’re sticking with request-to-book:

1. Commit to responding within one hour whenever possible
2. Write clear pre-approval messages that set expectations
3. Keep detailed notes on guest profiles to speed up decision-making
4. Use templates for common questions to reduce response time
5. Track which requests you accept vs. decline to spot patterns

For WP Rentals specifically:

Configure your global settings for deposits and service fees. These apply whether you use instant booking or not. Set a reasonable deposit percentage (typically 20-30%) and decide if you want a fixed or percentage-based service fee.

Enable the messaging system so guests can reach you with questions. Even instant-book properties benefit from post-booking communication.

Consider using the verified owner badge. Upload your ID through your profile, wait for admin approval, and display that verification to build credibility with guests.

The Bottom Line

There’s no universal answer to instant booking vs. request-to-book. Professional managers with multiple properties tend toward instant booking, while individual homeowners renting occasionally prefer request-to-book. Properties in high-demand markets can succeed with either model.

What matters most is matching your booking model to your business goals, property type, and capacity for guest management. Track your conversion rates, monitor guest quality, and don’t hesitate to switch if something isn’t working.

WP Rentals offers flexibility. Use it. Your perfect setup might not be extreme but a strategic mix based on season, property, and stay length.

Start with what makes you comfortable, then optimize based on results. That’s how you find your ideal booking model.